Spatial representations in mathematically and in artistically gifted children.

Summary. Mathematically and artistically gifted children and two IQ-matched control groups were compared for their abilities to carry out several types of visual-spatial tasks. One type of task was verbally presented and required a verbally formulated answer, while another was presented visually and the answer involved a choice of one of several visually presented alternatives. Two other types of problem were investigated, and these were respectively concerned with short-term memory for non-verbalisable shapes, and with the capacity to name objects or animals on the basis of minimal visual cues. Mathematically gifted children were better than all the other groups in solving the verbal-spatial problems. On the other hand, artistically gifted children were particularly able at constructive imagination on the basis of minimal perceptual cues. Despite being of different IQ levels, both mathematically and artistically gifted children were equally good and were superior to IQ-matched controls in visual recognition memory. The results justify the inference that level of performance on some of the tasks tested here is to some degree IQ-independent, but is related to specific artistic or mathematical talent.